The Wage Mage goes to the Hospital

So, the Wage Mage developed a nasty little lump in a fun place, not more than a physical stone's throw from the last place. Friday, it was a pea size lump. By Sunday, it was a large painful fluid filled lump. So, I went to have it opened and drained at the area hospital ER, and they seemed to get all the nasty bits out. They packed it with gauze, and told me just to take some antibiotics and it would get better.

The lump had other plans. By Tuesday night, it was a lump the size of one of those large gumballs you get from a machine for 50 cents, and a red area the size of the palm of my hand. I was also running quite the wicked fever. So, the hubby drug me back to the ER. The PA, who looked kinda like a skinny Dolph Lundgren, looks at it, and does a wordless "Oh crap," take. He numbs it, grabs a scalpel, and makes a large, deep cut. What came out looked like, oh hell, I love y'all too much to describe the gory details of what went everywhere on the gurney.

The PA was not entirely happy with it either. In the period of five minutes, they took a LOT of blood, put it into various jars and vials, and had an IV started. I got the two hour vancomycin treatment. I figured that okay, they'd do the bloodwork, give me the vancomycin, then send me home with more antibiotics.

Nope. The doctor walks in, who I had never seen before up to this point, apologizes, and tells me they have a nice isolation room for me upstairs. I tested positive for MRSA. I just nod, too freaking tired and sick to really argue. I had kinda suspected it, especially when the admissions rep came in, looked at me, and wandered off again.

Let me tell you friends, that isolation sucks. Let's not even discuss the food, which made McDonald's look positively gourmet. You could spackle walls with the mashed potatoes. It did not help that the vanco and toradol made everything taste like it had been spiked with alcohol pads. Eew. In response to the food, my gastrointestinal system responded with a gastroparesis episode that required three dulcolax to get restarted, something that is only a good idea in theory. The practice sucked.

Anyone who had to come into the room had to glove and gown. I felt like a lab rat in the CDC, or a leper. At one point, my husband just refused to do it anymore. If he hadn't gotten MRSA by then, trust me, he WASN'T going to get it now.

Then I got a scare. My bloodwork came back bad. It was one of two things, a contaminant, or MRSA in my blood. Door number one, the ER mistake option, meant I went home tomorrow. Door number two, MRSA in the blood, meant I went home Sunday with a central line and 28 days in outpatient IV therapy. Thank gods it was in fact door 1.

Luckily, I'm home, although on more drugs than the CVS carries. I could walk through the CDC ebola lab butt nekkind and not catch a damn thing. My face has cleared up from all the antibiotics, and that's positive.